Google Antitrust

[Mercutio]

Google's status as a monopoly in search and advertising technologies are being tested in US Federal court starting today. At issue in the first of these trials is the idea that Google both sets the market rates for ad search terms and acts as a buyer on behalf of customers that advertise through Google AND controls how web sites are designed to perform better in effective search rankings, more or less deciding how other businesses can operate with ad revenue. IIRC the second case involves the fact that Google controls some insane proportion of search through deals with Apple and Mozilla + its position with Chrome/Android/ChromeOS.

Google is the largest advertising company on the planet and honestly, I can't begin to care about that because effective ad blockers are a thing that exists, but something I think that we all know is that Google has fucked its search up in the name of showing more advertising results, and Google without ads is basically a company without money; it's the third-place B2B cloud, Android, Chrome, Youtube and Gmail are just ad markets.

This is an interesting matter because I am not sure how Google could be regulated as a single entity. Some staggering multi-billion dollar fine would just be a tactic admission that no one else knows either, and I'm not sure how Google (Alphabet, whatever) could be broken up into discrete revenue-positive businesses that could operate without the affiliation with Google's power over search and ads.

I am also not sure why this matter is getting so little attention in media. Sure, the orange man wants to set fire to our entire system of government and we have mass shootings on days that end in Y, but looking at tech news and I see more about updates to Fortnite and nVidia's stock price than this.

 

[jtr1962]

The matter should be getting a lot of attention if for no other reason than the fact Google led the way towards monetizing search engines. It annoys me no end how Amazon and eBay sellers can pay to be ranked higher in the search results. A search should return results based on relevancy, not who pays more.

I'm not sure there are any long term answers here either beyond maybe having a separate non-profit search engine paid for by government for those who still want a real search engine. People can still use Google if they're looking to buy stuff, but those who are searching for information will at least have a viable alternative. Unfortunately, there is no viable business model for a real search engine, which is why I suggested government develop one. Even relying on contributions is problematic. Some donors might expect special treatment, or the contributions might be insufficient to cover costs.

 

[LunarMist]

This is not a computer issue and belongs in the Pub and Brewery.

 

[Mercutio]

I think it's entirely appropriate for Computers. Who among us doesn't use some or other Google product as part of our computing every day?

Re: search as a public utility, I agree that it probably should be, but we in the USA have a political party that can't be trusted with the concept of unmolested public good (free covid vaccines; national parks as good places to put private oil fields), nor is there currently an international not-for-profit that I would trust to operate globally without prejudice for specific regional, ethnic, religious or language groups. I also think that any organization that was given that responsibility by fiat would instantly crash under the weight of bureaucracy and an inability to navigate the billions of unceasing attempts to game search algorithms.

 

[LunarMist]

I think it's entirely appropriate for Computers. Who among us doesn't use some or other Google product as part of our computing every day?

Not I, unless you mean the SAMSUNG cellphone. My company is 100% MS where applicable so we use the Official 365 and Bings. I am on the TEAMS day and night. If I used the Googles version of TEAMS would it be worse or just the SOS different day?

 

[Santilli]

I've been paying average 40 a month for Google Fi. Going to switch to Boost Mobile.
Fi makes you pay 10.00 for each gig, up to 6, then it's just 80 a month??
I barely use my phone outside the house.
Figure the 1.5 GB is for using the phone with driving directions...
Anyone have an alternative to Google browser?
Tried Brave but search engine sucks.
Better search engine then Google?
Don't even mention Edge...
Alternative to gmail?

 

[Mercutio]

Not I, unless you mean the SAMSUNG cellphone. My company is 100% MS where applicable so we use the Official 365 and Bings. I am on the TEAMS day and night. If I used the Googles version of TEAMS would it be worse or just the SOS different day?

Google Meet is widely seen as better than Teams by people who get to use both. To be far, hemorrhoids are widely seen as better than Teams as well.

Anyone have an alternative to Google browser?

All of them? Firefox and Vivaldi are two browsers I am more likely to use.
I do make use of Chrome since I have ChromeOS devices, but one thing I specifically like about Vivaldi is that it says it will continue to support Manifest v2 extensions.

Tried Brave but search engine sucks.
Better search engine then Google?

DuckDuckGo is so far as I can tell just a proxy for Bing, which I still think is actively worse at everything than Google but there are Ecosia and Kagi
Kagi is a paid platform, but I do occasionally use the trial searches. I also use Google strictly with Verbatim Search.

Alternative to gmail?

ProtonMail.
Some of the people I work with to make content, because not all of their professional work is strictly legal, use it for Email and Signal for messaging. ProtonMail is fully encrypted and anonymized, at least within itself.

 

[sedrosken]

We're actually trialing Intermedia Unite at the office, since we weren't particularly married to Teams or Zoom or anything as it is, and Unite integrates easily with our cloud PBX and such.

I use Waterfox -- used to be back in the olden times it was the only way to get a 64-bit Firefox build outside of Linux, now it's just Firefox with a few saner defaults and a nice vertical tab bar option. Merc, I actually have found times where even the Verbatim Google searches are so borked that DuckDuckGo (and ergo Bing) has gotten me legitimately better results. God, what a horrific timeline we live in.

+1 for ProtonMail. I did end up going back because it was cheaper, and the IMAP bridge software is easier to use and config for than trying to finagle an email client into connecting to MS's modern auth scheme. I'm still a little salty they took all my extra storage away, but I'm over it. I wasn't using it anyway.

 

[Santilli]

Speaking of monopolies, anyone have an alternative to Hulu?

 

[sedrosken]

Wait until September 19th.

 

[Mercutio]

Speaking of monopolies, anyone have an alternative to Hulu?

Hulu really isn't a monopoly since the overwhelming majority of its programming is just network television. ESPN might be, simply because of the number of exclusive contracts it has with various sportsing things.

There are IPTV providers out in the world. They're easier to find outside the USA. You can also use Youtube TV, Sling or Fubo to see most of the same stuff. Sports are always a weak point with these services and to that I say go to a bar. Spend $20 on beer and something deep fried and call it a day because it's still cheaper than a cable package.

 

[Mercutio]

Google won an antitrust appeal in the EU yesterday over its practices as they relate to search service, so it won't have to pay a $1.5B fine that was originally opposed on it. It is still facing charges in the US of holding a monopoly on advertising technologies, since it controls the market, the sales platform and establishes the going rates. I don't think it is getting out of that one and I'm very curious as to what remedy will be proposed in this case.

On the other hand, Apple has been ordered to pay the EU $15 billion and open iOS to third parties or face further sanctions. I'm sure that a medium sized army of lawyers will be along any minute to appeal that decision as well.

The EU seems to be the only meaningful regulator of big tech in the world. We don't give it enough credit for the work that it does to make massive tech conglomerates operate as good corporate citizens.

 

[Santilli]

Wait until September 19th.

???

 

[sedrosken]

Extrapolate the rest of that sentence, because I'm not going to openly advocate for piracy on a public forum with the same screen name I use to sign into linkedin.

 

[Mercutio]

I will openly advocate for piracy from giant American media conglomerates but I also don't have a LinkedIn account.

qbittorrent, Tor and Private Internet Access are great tastes that taste great together.

 

[Mercutio]

Google just got a smackdown in one of two pending antitrust cases in the USA today. It has been ordered to allow third parties to use its app store infrastructure and to cease the requirement for app developers to use its payment tech. This is a win for Epic, but I am curious to know if it means that I'll finally be able to load Amazon/Android software on my Play/Android devices easily.

There's still a pending case involving Google's de facto control over the advertising marketplace on the web, which has been an absolute comedy of errors on the part of Google's executives and advocates so far, where evidence was submitted that included suggestions that relevant employees manually delete chat and email messages about the topics relevant to the suit. Closing arguments in that case have been completed already but the district court has not decided what penalties will be set upon Google.

For the non-USians, District court is the lowest of our federal court systems. Google can and probably will appeal both these cases to our Appellate courts and ultimately the matters will at least be reviewed by the US Supreme Court, which is widely seen as anti-big-tech since its current extremely right-wing justices consider big tech as hostile to their ideology. Appeals can only be made on technical application of laws, not findings of fact, but it turns out that armies of lawyers are pretty good at finding those technicalities.

So maybe in another three or four years, Epic and Amazon might be able to ride for free on Google Play and ad brokers might have a different and probably even worse way to control ad distribution online. A victory for the people!

 

[LunarMist]

I have no clue what the outcome is, but the Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, APPLE, etc. are not going away.
Who are the generic "people" that are winning and what exactly are they winning? Is it better for profitability of your LLC or impact your stock portfolio?

 

[Mercutio]

These are the people of sarcasm, LM.